: Prompting Needed_

Os Aduitorus

Bones weren't something that I used to think of fondly. I mean, I still don't, but now I have respect for them. And, to be quite frank, I think everyone should too. Bones, as they are, represent our collective base selves as living organisms. They're structure. They're a firmament. They're literally the base line for so many creatures. Sure, you've got your super-intelligent shades of color that don't need bones. There are blobs that don't need them either... but they do eat bones. On the planet Earth – the dull, non-fantasy one I'm from – there are things like squids and tardigrades. Those don't need bones, but most everything else? Whether it's thick ones like human shins or bendy ones like fish... Bones, baby.

Everything needs bones. And I'm in charge of making sure everything destined to get bones has them to rely on.

Thinking back on my childhood, I never thought skeletons were cool. I didn't like watching cartoons that animated skeletons. I didn't have the fascination with grinning, fleshless smiles on Halloween. I really hated the anatomically incorrect decorations like insects made completely of bones. I held a reverence, in a way. Truth be told, if I had to subscribe to something fantastical, I was more of a werewolf kind of guy. Maybe sometimes I'd dabble in ghosts and goblins, but the thought of becoming a half-animalistic terror under whether curse or blood condition fascinated me. But as I grew, I changed. I mean, I didn't turn to appreciating skeletons as an entertainment venue, but I did leave behind my love of the wolfman. I left behind most all supernatural fandoms, actually. As a young man, I dove more into the science fiction and the explainable. That's why I find it kind of funny that I'm now a breathing representation of the sort of fiction I actively started to ignore as an adult.

I don't understand how I am what I am now. The actual origination of the method to my rise to office eludes me and my staff. Well, at least that's what they tell me. I'm pretty sure Beth holds a few secrets clutched close to her broad, werewolf-ian chest. And the multi-tentacled Tim always finds a reason to leave the room when I start asking questions that could be seen as 'invading'. But in the in-between times- when I get a few minutes to reflect and look at myself in the mirror while the universe continues to swirl around us, I take stock of myself. I ponder. I try like hell – again, the normal Earthen version of it – to remember what happened to me.

Flashes like still frames visit me normally. But they're so inconsistent and contradictory I can't trust them. Sometimes my last 'on Earth' memories are me right before dying somehow. Those used to be jarring but after a few decades those lost their edge. It was then I could really focus on those snippets to see that I was dying a different way every time. Car wrecks, murder, old age, electrocution, electrocution while in water, drowning and then dying right after resuscitation... you name it, I've seen through my eyes it happening to me. But then sometimes in between I'll see other worlds, other times... all through my eyes. And I'm dying there. I can't explain those, so normally I just chalk it up to being the Os Auditorus and having to exist in this office. Maybe memory is a young person's game. And whatever I am, I'm not young anymore.

What stares back at me in the mirror is the most paradoxical thing... primarily because I don't have physical eyes anymore. I can see, trust me. My eyesight's never been better. Consistently sharp, and I can't blink, so I never miss something when I'm... looking at something. My nose seems to be of common human make with a thin line of a mouth below it with too many teeth. Like, they're well cared for, they're not crowded. I don't know why my mouth is the way it is, but damn is it wide. I often spend at least a minute during my contemplation opening and closing my jaw to make a surprisingly loud clacking sound. It's worth noting that my jaw's way stronger than a human's by far. No one in the office has been able to bake or forge anything I can't snap in two with my chompers. The majority of my body is shrouded in a black mist that can – at will – coalesce into any form of clothing I can imagine though most days I just wear the obligatory three-piece. I find it fits the motif. What remains uncovered are my hands and neck. Both are thinner than one would expect noting the size of my jaw, and the skin there is as white and smooth as the skin of my face. Fun fact, though... I can change the color of my nails. Just not the shape. They're always a bit... talon-ish.

So that's me. The Bone Auditor. Or, if you go by the name tag permanently affixed to my door, the Os Auditorus. If you're reading this from my Earth and you're wondering why is a multi-dimensional, multi-timed, multi-reality office labeling things in old Earth Latin, I haven't a clue. I've tried asking other staff here, but they either don't know, or they don't see it like I do. And digging deeper into those kinds of questions does nothing but slow down the process here.

So, to keep the peace and to make sure we all stay productive, I run the numbers and pull the results. I move the data. I make sure the office stays moving. You see, the bones aren't going to audit themselves. Trust me, I tried to do that once. I gave the sorting room a very well-documented set of instructions that should have allowed them to become autonomous. That plan resulted in a back-up so snagged that pre-biblical Earth halted new organism construction for three hours.

Ceasing the function of life for three hours seems harmless, right?

That was the year the human precursor population of the planet dipped by one-point-two million. Eons later, experts across the world would call the organic hiccup as the "worst thing to happen to evolution" and that if it were to ever happen again, "life could just... stop." All because I wanted a little break.

It's a good thing this form never seems to get tired, huh?

So, what's next for me? Honestly, I don't know. As far as I can tell, I can't just give the mantle over to another person until they stumble into it. The chances of that – as I write this at the end of seventy measured Earth years – are slim. And, really, I've stopped counting in regular time anyway. That tends to gum up the paperwork here. Instead, I've taken to finding even more hidden moments so I can create and post many 'positive affirmation' posters on the walls here that depict moments of my own life in a perpetual loop. And when I'm on the job, I'll continue to make sure that most (not all) organisms that need a skull get just one (unless they need two). I'll continue to assure reality that their continued existence will stay a constant. I'll continue to slide the beads on my infernal abacus from the abyss and perform the ancient galactic rites that transmute dust into skeletons. It's the very least that I can do now because anything less will destroy the cosmos.

Also, I'll be damned if I'm going to get my picture put down in the hall of shame. The last guy on there looks a lot like me, but the nose is different. And the lighting in that hall is abysmal.